When shallow-mindedness surges forward and is allowed to become entrenched, the backwash is so huge, it quickly engulfs everything intended to shore up or improve the overall quality of life.In the absence of adequate and timely countermeasures, the very fabric of civilised society gets ripped to pieces, forcing all things bright and beautiful to drift off to oblivion, often leaving no footprint to mark their transition from the stage. I pray that wouldn't happen when polling day dawns.
In the relatively brief period since the right to vote became universal in T&T, many political groupings have risen up in the evening like stars, only to burn out by dawn.Why is this? The answer is that, apart from the People's National Movement, not a single one has exhibited the smarts to build on tremendous initial political capital: by establishing a workable institutional framework that'd last beyond the horizon of its principal founder's lifetime.
Over the years, this glaring shortsightedness has accommodated the PNM being Teflonised to the point where it remains formidable and practically in control even when it's not in power or outnumbered.To allow the PNM another bite at the cherry in 2015, is to shortchange the good people of T&T. For T&T is a democracy, not the Titanic.
Democracy can only flourish where at least two titans, not one, endure. The reins of government are for those presenting a durable political engine. Most governmental policies take years to formulate, far more to implement. Nobody ever votes in a government only for it to last one term, especially when it takes over from one that left everything in shambles.
While the experiment of 2010 was successful–it removed a wayward r�gime–having evaluated how the diverse parts of the People's Partnership interacted over the past five years, it's patently clear the country prefers Kamla to everyone else, especially Rowley, but isn't keen on the party of parties thingy anymore.
The whole shebang must therefore return to the factory to be refitted for the long haul now. The technicians are plentiful...and more than up to the task. Minister Karim has taken skills-training to nooks and crannies in T&T where PNM had blocked it from going.When the date is set and voters look again to Kamla, they must see one clearcut engine room, one clearcut leader, one clearcut deputy and every manjack united under one umbrella. In the run-up to 1956, that's what PNM did.
And it prevailed. But, there was no united front to oppose them then.
Richard Wm Thomas,
Arouca